Caltech Creates Cameras Without Lenses, Thinner Smartphones Coming Up

Just when it was thought that smartphones could not get any thinner, Caltech engineers just had to be creative and muck everything up. By creating a camera technology that does not require a lens, these Brainiacs basically gave smartphone creators license to make even more anorexic devices than ever before. Then again, ugly bulges won’t be a problem anymore, so that’s a plus.

Using special sensors and a custom software, the Caltech engineers basically created a camera design that replicates the same light-capturing effect of lenses of digital cameras, PC Mag reports. It’s basically a smaller version of something called a phased array, which radar and wireless antennae technology employed. In the university newsroom piece, Ali Hajimiri, a professor of electrical engineering at Caltech explained how the system works.

"We've created a single thin layer of integrated silicon photonics that emulates the lens and sensor of a digital camera, reducing the thickness and cost of digital cameras,” Prof. Hajimiri said. “It can mimic a regular lens, but can switch from a fish-eye to a telephoto lens instantaneously—with just a simple adjustment in the way the array receives light."

On that note, this camera technology is no guarantee of adoption. What customers want from their smartphone cameras is clarity and quality, more than anything else. If the lens-less camera that Caltech engineers created is unable to provide the crisp images that today’s iPhone and Samsung Galaxy can capture, it will be of no use to Apple or any other company.

According to the researchers, this is exactly what they are planning to do for the next phase of the project, CNET reports. By improving the resolution of the images that the ultrathin camera can capture, there might be a place for it in the manufacturing process of the smartphones of the future.